Jo Swinson MP, East Dunbartonshire voted not to exempt parents from Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission fees where it is not possible or appropriate for them to have made a maintenance agreement.

The majority of MPs voted against a proposal to exempt parents from Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission fees where it is not possible or appropriate for them to have made a maintenance agreement.

“(2A) Nothing in regulations under subsection (1) shall impose a liability on a parent with care for the payment of fees to the Commission where that parent has taken reasonable steps to establish whether it is possible or appropriate to make a maintenance agreement (within the meaning of section 9 of the Child Support Act 1991), and where, having taken such reasonable steps, it is either not possible or not appropriate for the parent with care to do so."

This would have been added to the clause relating to Collection of child support maintenance[3]

James Mackay (Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Conservative) explained why he moved the amendment in the Lords:

My amendment is about a very simple matter of fairness. The government briefing dealing with the clause in its earlier form included the statement, which all of us may believe to be true, that,

:"a significant proportion of parents will not be able to collaborate. For example, where an applicant has a former partner who refuses to engage or pay child maintenance voluntarily there would be no reasonable steps they could take".

That is the group I am focusing on, because I do not believe that it is fair to require them to pay charges when they are not responsible for creating the need for the use of the service.

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian
Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

There are lots of plans afoot, including extensive redevelopment of the site and plans for new
functionality. To keep up with what's happening, please check out the blog. We're working on updating all the contact
details throughout the site, but if you'd like to talk to us about the project, please email
[email protected]